The Possibilities and Limitations of Technology
Improvisation at Bowling Green State
University
Compiled by Ellen E. Berry[i]
This page contains samples from the two
improvisational sessions held at Bowling Green State University on October 19,
1996, under the sponsorship of its Institute for the Study of Culture and
Society. Individual participants
responded to an invitation that was distributed widely to the university
community as well as to selected individuals in the local community:
"We invite you to participate in either of
two Collective Improvisation sessions led by Mikhail Epstein (Russian Studies,
Emory University) and Ellen Berry (English/Scholar in Residence, ICS). These sessions occur in conjunction
with a talk the previous night by Epstein and Berry titled "Experiments in
Transculture: Rethinking Russian
and American Creative Communication." You are encouraged to attend the talk, but attendance is not
required in order to participate in the sessions.
Collective Improvisations were group writing
experiments pioneered at the innovative Moscow Center for Experimental
Creativity in the last years of perestroika. Their goal was to liberate thinking from predictable
channels and encourage interactions among vastly different disciplinary perspectives,
life experiences, and worldviews.
Each session began with an introduction by Mikhail
Epstein in which he explained briefly the history, rationale, and procedures of
improvisations to the assembled group.
The four examples that follow are from the morning session, where the
topic selected was "The Possibilities and Limitations of Technology."
Vida Penezic
Department of Popular Culture
There is a computer hard disk in Iowa on which is
stored all of our deleted revisions and drafts, all our spelling mistakes and
grammatical errors, all the personal thoughts we wrote and then decided we
would rather die than show to anyone.
Except that instead of disappearing from the face of the earth, they are
forever preserved on that hard disk in Iowa. While there are people who still claim that all our
deletions go directly to God, the fact remains that they go to Iowa after all.
What happens when we introduce the idea of
technology—or, more precisely, the idea of a technological device--into our
search for the absolute? If I am
looking for the secret of the universe, will computer technology help me to
find it? Can I search the Internet
for the answer? Or does technology
just stand in the way of my search?
Technology would seem to be completely outside such an ancient or
primitive quest, which can only be conducted by a primitive tool such as the
brain. But are our brains ancient
at some level or do they simply travel along and change as we--the
species--travel through history, changing? Does technology loom so large on our horizon that we now
believe it alone might reveal the secret of the universe?
Walkman and sunset. Internet and meditation. There are probably good reasons why these pairs of terms
should not be considered polar opposites, but for the moment, let's assume that
they are. Their role in my life is
that they compete for my attention, for that limited number of minutes every
day that I give myself permission to use however I choose, to do whatever
pleases me. Walkman and
sunset. I try to take a walk
several times a week. Do I wear my
walkman or do I pay attention to the beauty of my surroundings--leaves on the
lawns, the sky, the sunset? Which
will take me close to the secret of the universe? Internet and meditation. The same thing.
Every morning I have time only for one. Am I going to sit down and meditate to have my mind less
noisy, less cluttered; try to draw on some inner channels, perhaps? Or should I travel the Internet, reach
out into the world, fill my mind
with thousands of new images and messages? I guess the question for me is, Do I have to choose or
should I let both--all of it, all of everything--into my world?
In lieu of a conclusion: One good thing about
having written this out by hand is that it won't end up on that hard disk in
Iowa--unless someone types these improvisations on their computer. Sunset and meditation, on the other
hand, are not a part of this system unless, of course, they are directly hooked
up to God. Then they are search
engines for the secrets of the universe.
The Social Consequences of Technology
Francisco Cabanallis
Department of Romance Languages
The social consequences of technology are
simultaneously favorable and unfavorable.
Like other social constructs, technology is an expression of power. As a form of rhetorical propaganda, technology
is defined as a problem-solving entity; it is supposed to make existence better. And, to a large extent, it does
so. But it also creates other
problems, which new technologies must resolve. Technology creates a great deal of our social existence; it
determines most of our social patterns.
Favorable technology articulates itself in the social fabric with more
than technological premises; it needs to accommodate its propositions within
ethical premises too. Unfavorable
technology disregards ethical concerns; it is usually driven by narrow economic
interests.
Some of the social consequences of the latest
technologies include a simultaneous interplay between promoting social
interaction and promoting social alienation. As the current ultimate expression of technology, computers
can do both. They can connect
individuals with the rest of the world, but they can also isolate those
individuals from physical contact.
Virtual reality is both social and antisocial.
Some of the negative consequences of the latest
technologies involve the ability of the state to accumulate information about individuals
and to use it to repress the individual or a social group. Technologies always have had this
effect. The main difference with
the latest technology is that such surveillance has become even easier.
Another negative consequence of technology has to
do with the way in which businesses take advantage of it; individuals are
monitored in terms of their consumption, so their public identity runs the risk of consisting of nothing more
than their consumption habits to the exclusion of any other traits. Technology thus can redefine identity.
An important social consequence of technology,
which I have heard in both directions, consists of the possible elimination of
cities (or the reduction of their importance), given that technology will make
concentration of individuals in one physical space obsolete. I have also encountered some economists
who say the opposite: Cyberspace will increase the vitality of cities. Only in the first instance would high
technology have a profound social impact in that it would be reproducing a
pretechnological form of society based on country--not city--existence.
Another important social consequence of technology
(particularly computers) is that it increases reading and writing--which
television decreases. However, it
is feasible to think that, given the pragmatic nature of technology, reading
and writing are stimulated only in terms favorable to consumer society.
Technology can have positive social consequences
in certain societies; however, overall I don't believe that technology is
universally good. Ultimately, the
instability of technology suggests that people outside the field of technology
should monitor it. What I mean is
that if we are to ensure that technologies are used in positive ways, we should
always keep in mind the ethical consequences of them and should try to
articulate them in the broadest and most democratic terms--nationally and
internationally--which technologies such as the Internet are in a position of
doing.
Everyday Technology and Communication
Patrick Alexander
American Culture Studies
In an age defined by technology, questions are
often raised concerning the intimate role of the machine in the life of the
user. A transcultural perspective
can be especially helpful in this respect, as different cultures have various
tools that they take for granted (imagine chopsticks juxtaposed with forks);
although they may use similar technologies, it is likely that every culture
uses them in different ways or has a different way of expressing a personal relationship
with the technology.
The subject of our personal relations with
technology can be a difficult topic to elaborate on due to the clichés
established in contemporary culture concerning the personal-technological
dichotomy. There is a tendency to
imbue our technologies with spiritual or maybe simply human characteristics,
for instance.
In this we can see the personal relationships we
take on with our machines. People
name their cars, even their computers, and other objects. We want to coax our technologies into
functioning properly by caressing them, patting them, or goading them on with
soft sweet talk: "C'mon now, that's it, load that program" or
"Start for me, c'mon, Bob."
However, isn't this just simple anthropomorphism, the same way we
explain to ourselves in our own terms the ways in which animals behave? Through personalizing our technologies,
we can better justify their integral role in our daily existence.
If we just label them all as machines we put a
uniform quality onto them, generalizing them as one thing that functions in one
uniform way. Perhaps through our
anthropomorphic attitude we are aiming to recognize the differences and
diversity that characterize machines.
I can personally attest to having gotten involved in personal and distinctive
relationships with seemingly identical machines. Since I teach in three different places, I became acquainted
with three different Xerox machines.
For each individual machine, I was forced to adopt a particular attitude
if I wished to successfully interact with it. So in many ways it was no different from having to interact
and modify my behavior with three separate colleagues. The most superficial, in that it is the
most commonly trivialized, aspect of "the question of technology" and
at the same time the most little discussed and most pressing is not just the
relationships we form with machines but how these relationships affect our
communications with other people.
It is interesting to consider the almost
imperceptible process through which a technology moves from being a strange
novelty to being an item of great centrality and unimaginable importance to our
daily lives. I recently bought a
laptop computer. When I picked
this item up at the shop, the salesman said, "After this you won't be able
to imagine how you lived your life before." And this certainly seems to be the case. We assimilate technologies into our
daily routines quite readily. Even
the most trivial appliances--such as a coffee grinder or a food processor or a
remote control--become so much a part of our daily lives that the thought of
being without them seems the ultimate in deprivation or lack. And this is where a real difference can
be seen between cultures. What
about cultures in which items such as these are not universally available or
owned by all? What about people
who operate within our own culture without these trinkets? In cases such as these, can disparate experiences translate? Can people who speak different
technological languages communicate?
This is the part of the essay where I fear I will
fail in my goal of shedding some new light on the topic of everyday technology
and communication for all I can do is to restate the commonplaces--but perhaps
this too can be helpful. Does the
use of the telephone facilitate communication or do people meet less
face-to-face and fail to seek one another out? Does a television (or ten) in every pub inhibit real
conversation or serve as a stimulation and launching pad for discussion? Does video isolate everyone in their homes,
preventing them from venturing out to the cinema, or serve as an excuse for
them to convene with others, view a film together, and then discuss it? Does the Internet link millions of
people or only accelerate and facilitate misinformation, misinterpretation,
misunderstanding? Perhaps we
should ask, Does a solid community have to exist first, which can later be
enhanced by technology, or can technology really create community, really
generate true--and new--forms of communication?
Tools and Art
Ellen E. Berry
Department of English
Any technology is a tool, and tools are prosthetic
devices, ways of extending the capacities of the body and moving us beyond our
physical limitations. So a rock
becomes a hammer to protect the hand, which would otherwise be incapable of
pounding corn into cornmeal. Human
consciousness and behavior are undeniably altered through the intervention of
technology. In fact we might claim
that the history of civilization is inseparable from the invention of various
technologies, whose purpose has always been to extend the capacities of the
human body over time and place.
Was there a second use of technology present from
the beginning? Did our ancestors
use rocks not only to pound corn into cornmeal or to kill animals but also to
decorate their huts with small piles of stones that became sculptures? When and how did tools move from
pragmatic instrumental objects to become conduits of creative expression? What can we learn about the complex and
multiple histories of human creative expressions by looking at the technologies
through which creativity ultimately had to be expressed? Do particular technologies open
specific kinds of creativity, and thus do genuinely new art forms only arise
when new technologies are developed?
What is the sequence here?
The computer is perhaps the most recent example of
a dramatically new technology, one originally invented for purely instrumental
uses (and military ones at that; violence and the exercise of power through
technology would be another angle on this topic). Yet the computer has, almost from the first, been used for
artistic purposes as well.
Computer art has had to go through the same process of acceptance that
other new art forms have had to. I am reminded of how people considered photography
and cinema to be illegitimate as art when they first were invented. Their invention also raises the
question of relations among the development of new technologies, the emergence
of new art forms, and the resulting impact of these new technologically
assisted arts on our perception of older art forms. Walter Benjamin wrote about the waning of the artwork's
"aura" (a kind of unique artistic presence) in the face of the
possibility that art could suddenly be reproduced mechanically, made in multiple
copies--the emergence of Xerox-consciousness and the loss of absolute,
one-of-a-kind artistic uniqueness.
The shock of these new art forms--photography and cinema--has long
passed, and the computer--computer-generated art--is now the site where we are
working through these issues and anxieties concerning relations between the
human and the technological--the human enhanced. The artist is now "assisted" by the computer, or
the computer actually generates the art.
Where is the artist in all this?
Has the human element disappeared in creativity to be replaced by the
machine itself? With the computer,
have we invented a technology that--because it is a model of the human
mind--will ultimately usurp the human as creator?
All these techno-fears and science-fiction
scenarios. Can thought go on
without a body, as Lyotard asks?
Can artistic expression? Or
has the human creative capacity always been so dependent on technology that it
is inseparable from it and in our demand to be recognized as individual creators
have we repressed and ignored this fact?
